History isn’t kind to the Nets’ chances of coming back to win their Eastern Conference Semifinal against the Heat.

Teams in the Nets’ situation – trailing 2-0 in a best-of-seven series – have gone on to lose 94 percent of the time. And when you factor in the personal history of LeBron James, whose teams are a perfect 12-for-12 in advancing after holding a 2-0 lead in a series, things look even worse.

If the Nets want to buck the historical trends and come back to dethrone the two-time defending champions, they to start Saturday night, when they return to Brooklyn to host Game 3.

“We’ve just got to protect our home now,” Paul Pierce said after scoring 13 points in Thursday’s 94-82 Game 2 loss, though just one in the fourth quarter. “We’ve got to figure out what we did wrong here late in this game, and try to clean those things up.

“But I thought we defended them tough. We made it tough on them tonight. We saw some good positive things tonight, unlike Game 1. We came out with a lot more grit. We made it tough on them. The only thing right now we got to do is try to get two at home.”

To have any chance to make this a series, they have to win both at home — as Pierce suggested — or else face the task of having to win three games in a row against James and the Heat, including two on the road.

To do so, the Nets will have to close out the games in Brooklyn better than they did in Miami, particularly Game 2. The Nets went just 6-for-18 from the floor in the final 12 minutes – including a combined 2-for-11 for Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Kevin Garnett – while allowing the Heat to go 9-for-16.

What’s worse is that three of those seven Heat misses came during one possession late in the quarter, when Miami grabbed three consecutive offensive rebounds before James made a layup to conclude a 100-second possession that gave the Heat an 89-79 lead with 1:59 remaining and iced the game.

“We definitely didn’t do a good job of closing out the game on either end of the floor and that was a big reason we lost,” said Williams, who went scoreless for the first time in 60 playoff games, missing all nine of his shots. “We were in there the whole game, we fought the whole game, [but] the rebounds definitely cost us down the stretch and then not being able to get a stop.”

That failure to close out Game 2 robbed the Nets of a golden opportunity to go back to Brooklyn with the series tied at a game apiece and with homecourt advantage. Instead, they now find themselves with their backs against the wall, their hopes of giving the two-time defending champions a serious challenge slipping away.

“We got to get these at home,” Garnett said. “There’s nothing left to talk about.”